Posted on 02/25/2018 6:48:42 PM PST by nickcarraway
Day-old pizza is God's gift to college students, starving artists and anyone who thought it was a brilliant idea to order that extra-large double-meat at 2 a.m. after coming home from the bar, only to go sleepy-peepy halfway through the first slice.
But while cold pizza is a bona fide breakfast of champions, what about room-temperature pizza? Will you get sick if you throw down a few slices of the pepperoni that sat in a greasy cardboard box next to your bed for the last eight hours?
The official answer — don't risk it. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published some food safety guidelines for students in which it answered this very question. According to the USDA, you should throw away any leftover food that's been sitting out at room temperature for two hours or more, whether or not it contains meat.
The reason is that bad bacteria grow the fastest on foods that are in the "danger zone," temperatures between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees Celsius to 60 Celsius). The bacteria actually double in number every 20 minutes.
Does that mean that every pizza is contaminated with pathogenic bacteria that will explode in number if the pie is left out for more than two hours? Absolutely not. Benjamin Chapman, a food safety specialist at North Carolina State University, told Lifehacker that leftover pizza hasn't made enough people sick to count as a public health risk.
Chapman says it's probably because pizza toppings and crust are generally too dry to be bacteria-friendly environments and that tomato sauce is too acidic. Not all toppings are created equal, though. Pepperoni is dry cured, so it's built to last. But eating old veggie ingredients or moist chunks of chicken is probably pressing your luck.
To get a sense of the general risk level of pizza, check out this public health report from Ontario, Canada. According to a review of global food poisoning databases, pizza has been implicated in a number of foodborne illness outbreaks worldwide, and that includes pizzas of all types (plain cheese, meat, veggie) in both restaurants and in homes.
For some perspective though, that report cited a few hundred individual cases of food poisoning over more than a decade of worldwide pizza-eating. In the U.S. alone, we eat an estimated 3 billion pizzas every year.
So should you finish off those last two pieces of stuffed-crust Hawaiian from last night's poker game? The odds of getting sick are probably similar to the odds of drawing a royal flush. So the real question is, are you feeling lucky?
30 cases? you would not poop in 30 years LOL
Someone at work keeps their vinegar in the fridge LOL
NB: Not a good rule of thumb for wild mushrooms! Some people on their deathbeds have said that the very poisonous ones they ate didn’t taste bad at all.
Gotta saw logs, Cyall....
Actually those 30 cases lasted me two or three years. That was eating one every few days or so.
My wife died over 20 years ago and I have not eaten well since. I am not much of a cook so that is part of why the MREs tasted OK to me.
the fungus among us
I used to work with a guy. He grabbed his Tupperware container out of his trunk Monday morning. “I almost forgot my lunch - lasagna!”
All the rest of his gear was in his backseat. “Oh - did you put it back there to keep it cooler?”
“No - it’s leftover from Friday.”
“Yeah - but why did you put it in the trunk?”
“’Cuz the car was full of people on Friday.”
“Wait - it’s been in the trunk since Friday?” (Springtime).
“Yeah - oh - it’ll still be okay.”
He used to be a Health Inspector - educated me on a few things. He ate it all and didn’t get sick. However, I still wouldn’t risk 3 day old lasagna from the trunk!
You should go to Huddle House :)
Sorry for your loss.
Hey safety nazi’s, I’ll eat all the room temp pizza I want. I once ate 2-3 day old room temp pizza and was just fine.
He probably had confidence in that it was prepped clean and cooked right.
If he offered some I would pass though.
Lil chewy?
Cold Pizza in the Morning! My #1 all time fave.
When it comes to drawing a royal straight flush, the answer is no. Getting sick from pizza at room temperature, my "luck" meter in pegged. 8>)
Maybe a fresh organic pizza but the crap we buy is so salty and the meats are super cured they can sit there at room temperature for 3 days and you won’t get sick.
the worst I’ve done is let the crusts harden for 2 days, then gnaw ‘em if you feel like snacking.
If its in the box with the lid covered, and your house isnt a sauna, and no anchovies or veggies, no worries. never got sick off pizza left overnite covered in a box.
Nuc it, it’s the only way to be sure.
Not really. The crust was stale but I was in college and hungry
Bon Appa Tits!
“General rule of thumb: “if it looks OK, smells OK and tastes OK, it probably OK”
If it looks wonky and smells funky....”
This applies to dating too.
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